A backpack for hunger

Berkeley County program collects food for children in need

July 6, 2012

HEDGESVILLE - Some children only eat when they are in school, so what happens when school's out? The volunteers of the Berkeley County Backpack Program are working to solve the problem.

Early Thursday morning, Berkeley County Backpack Program volunteers arrived at Hedgesville Church and began unloading and sorting over 600 pounds of donated food. The group, directed by Jennifer Yeater, worked to organize the donations into bags to be dispersed to local families.

Yeater, who founded the program in Berkeley County, became aware of the pilot program, Feeding America, when she realized the need in her local community. The local Feeding America food bank is the Mountaineer Food Bank in Gassaway, W. Va., which provides food to the Berkeley County program.

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The participating schools in the county choose families and submit the number of participants to Yeater each year. The program began in November 2010 with 36 participants, and by the end of school in 2012, the program was providing 220 students with food.

"The school provides us a number, we don't give them a number," Yeater said.

During the school year, Yeater and her crew of volunteers deliver weekly bags to 11 area schools. The guidance counselors will slip in, as discreetly as possible, and place the plastic bags in students' backpacks. Each bag will contain between five and eight pounds of food, which is the regulation for students to carry.

Fact Box

If You Go:

What: Spaghetti Night

Where: Tomahawk Intermediate School

When: August 26, 2 - 6 p.m.

Cost: $7 per ticket, children under age 3 eat free

Tickets may be purchased at the door, by calling 304-279-2142 or by emailing berkcobpprogram@yahoo.com

Summertime, however, poses many problems in making sure the students are being able to eat. Guidance counselors are not able to check on students, and while the Backpack Program does continue in the summer, transportation often poses issues since the students are not carrying backpacks home.

"During summer, we have four different locations that parents can come pick up bags. We try to really load them up since it's not weekly like it is during the school year," Yeater said.

According to the program's secretary, Lisa Henry, only about one-third of families choose to participate during the summer, when food is distributed twice monthly.

"While transportation is often an issue, we do have volunteers who will drop the food off where it is needed," Yeater said.

The goal of Yeater and her team is simple: that they are able to provide food to all the students that each school asks of them.

"Since we started, we have been blessed to be able to meet all the need, but our organization lives week-to-week just like many families do," Yeater said.

Local volunteer Betty Carle said her motivation is the children. She recently collected 87 jars of peanut butter and 86 jars of jelly, which totaled 287 pounds of food.

"We have a lot of children that are in need; not in another country, but right here," Carle said.

Volunteers like Carle worked at dividing the food into bags, and taking proper precautions to separate bags for children with food allergies. The program checks in with parents periodically during the school year by sending surveys home. Yeater explained that it is important to know what a family needs, what they can use and what they can not.

"Although we can't personalize 220 bags, we try to do the best we can," Yeater said.

Donation boxes for the Berkeley County Backpack Program can be found at community locations including Berkeley County Public Library branches, Bank of Charles Town locations, Kisner Communications, and Gold's Gym. Suggested donations include juice boxes, fruit cups, peanut butter and canned meals with a pop-tab that don't require a can opener.

Berkeley County Backpack Program is a registered West Virginia nonprofit, and a 501(c)(3) organization.